For our research we tried to understand the Mimosa Pudica’s natural process. Actually, this plant that grows in the brazilian forests, is able to curl up in order to protect it.

This sensible reaction appears when the plant is confronted with fire, strong wind, rain or even a simple touch (animal or human). At the plant scale, this withdrawal appears at the level of leaves, stems and branchilius.

The Mimosa Pudica’s physical process consists in a state change at the chemical level. Actually, every single little branchilius is linked to the bigger one by a node that is composed of cells full of water. When a transfer of water comes from the bottom to the up of the node, the bottom part goes weaker than the up part: the branchilius bends.

Our interest for the process firstly brought us trying some experiments concerning the conservation of the same area of the cells fully of water (when they’re both full // when they haven’t the same quantity of water).

Our first experiment consists into the creation of a geometry that can change of shape but keeping the same area.

With this model exercise, we proposed a ‘structure’ that keeps a same area (a module = a square) but that can be modified in a unique direction, still keeping the same area.

Also, the main issue of this ‘structure’ lies in the change of area can generate the initial shape.